State lifts Seven Hills Charter School probation

Tuesday

Jan 29, 2013 at 5:00 PMJan 29, 2013 at 7:05 PM

By Jacqueline Reis TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

The state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education voted today to take Seven Hills Charter Public School off probation in light of progress it has made over the past two years. The school must still improve its academic performance by December 2014.

“The only condition is that we continue to sustain the progress,” Seven Hills Superintendent Krista Piazza said. “We plan on continuing to work hard to do that.”

The school is still considered among the lowest performing 20 percent of schools in the state, but it has met almost all of its improvement goals for the year, according to the state. State Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education Mitchell D. Chester noted in his memo to the board that the school's math performance has improved steadily, but its English language arts program has not shown the same growth.

However, scores show that the school is getting more than half of its students to proficiency in English language arts, while only 42 percent of its students were proficient in math.

The school has 665 students in kindergarten through Grade 8, all of whom are from Worcester. On the spring 2012 Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System tests, Seven Hills outscored Worcester public schools as a district in many categories, including all of those for Grades 3 and 4.

Since being put on probation in 2011, the school has lengthened its school day, shortened its summer vacation, used more co-teaching, partnered with other schools and networks to strengthen how they target instruction, hire heads of school to provide more intensive support and supervision of teachers, instituted College Week to connect student learning to future goals and reexamined the school's methods for engaging families.

“We are proud to be part of Seven Hills and will stop at nothing to keep the momentum going,” Seven Hills board member Chirag Parikh said in a prepared statement.